The credits of "Gran Torino" claim that Clint Eastwood plays a character named Walt Kowalski. This is not quite accurate. Clint Eastwood plays Clint Eastwood, and he's really good at it. At the tender age of 78, Eastwood's status as the reigning badass of American cinema remains relatively unchallenged (Jack Nicholson runs a distant second). And how could this be? With his taut, wizened features stretched tight over a perpetual grimace, Eastwood bears less resemblance to a human being than to something carved from a very old piece of wood. Throw in the voice -- which has coarsened with age from a throaty whisper into a low, snarling rumble -- and the effect falls somewhere between self-parodic and terrifying.
One of the many pleasures of "Gran Torino" is that it plays to the actor's narrow, but prodigious strengths. Eastwood, who also directed the film, has cast himself as a crusty old veteran who spends his days guzzling Pabst Blue Ribbon, polishing his 1972 Gran Torino and growling out obscenities at anyone who passes by. If Dirty Harry ever retired, he'd look something like this. Walt is also an unabashed racist, a fact that becomes apparent in his interactions with the Asian community that has developed in his neighborhood. "How many swamp rats can you fit in one room?" Walt muses to himself as a Hmong family gathering takes place next door.
If you find yourself wincing at that sort of flowery racial profanity, "Gran Torino" may not be the movie for you. The film's dialogue is comically obscene, a sort of exaggerated urban patois saturated with venomous racial slurs. Most of these emerge from Walt, who defiantly hoists an American flag off the front of his porch in unspoken opposition to the Hmong community that has sprung up around him. Walt is recently widowed (we can only assume that she was an exceptionally patient woman) and seems to have decided that the rest of the world is no longer worth his time. "Can't you see I just want to be left alone?" he growls at Sue (Ahney Her), the perky Asian teenager who drops by to say hello.
The moment you hear a line like this in a movie, it is a sure sign that the person who says it a) secretly doesn't want to be left alone, and b) will soon find his or her privacy under siege by a surge of neighborly goodwill. So it is with Walt, who becomes entangled with the Hmong community through unexpected circumstances and then gradually grows to respect them. "Gran Torino" dutifully charts Walt's psychological thaw from a racist asshole to a racist asshole with a heart of gold. Estranged from his two grown sons, he becomes a surrogate father figure to Sue and her brother Thao (Bee Vang), who must be pretty desperate for paternal guidance if they're hanging out with a guy like Walt.
It turns out that Thao is unwillingly mixed up with a local Hmong gang that prowls around the neighborhood causing trouble. One night their violence spills onto Walt's property, leading to an inspired scene in which Eastwood emerges from the darkness brandishing a shotgun and snarling "Get off my lawn!" like the Grumpy Old Man from Hell.
With any other star, the plot's abrupt transition from racial parable to vigilante thriller would seem clumsy and disjointed, but Eastwood's coiled screen persona makes the shift feel natural, even expected. For the first time in ages, I sensed a hint of irony behind the actor's grizzled scowl, a sly self-reflexivity not seen since his cowboy days. This caustic wit has been sorely absent from Eastwood's recent directorial efforts, many of which -- "Changeling" (2008) and "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006) come to mind -- were so solemn and ponderous that they collapsed under their own weight. "Gran Torino" is clearly a work of meticulous craftsmanship (observe Tom Stern's crisp cinematography, and the masterful score composed by Eastwood's son Kyle), but it's more engaging than anything Eastwood has done in years.
With all the macho gunplay and salty dialogue, it's tempting to toss "Gran Torino" into the same lowbrow caste as the "Dirty Harry" franchise that it so conspicuously references. But a second glance at the film suggests some deceptively profound insights into our particular historical moment. The script was initially set in Minneapolis, but Eastwood shifted the action to Detroit, the graveyard of America's capitalist fantasies. The election of Barack Obama has been widely interpreted as the dawn of a post-racial era, but "Gran Torino" paints a darker portrait of race in America, offering a protagonist whose regressive attitudes are born out of deep-rooted xenophobic angst. Eastwood has turned his piercing gaze toward the shortcomings of the American dream, and the results are painful, fascinating and deeply engrossing to watch.
